Simon Hunter
TWO TEACHERS on Thursday delivered a petition with 63,000 signatures to Spain’s Congress of Deputies in a bid to encourage a total ban on the use of mobile phones for teenagers aged between 14 and 16 years old.
“We hope that [lawmakers] listen to us because […] we are at a time when this has to be stopped,” one of the teachers, Angela Sanchez-Perez, told reporters, according to news agency Europa Press.
In their petition, Sanchez-Perez and her colleague Natalia Jimenez speak about the ‘negative consequences’ of the early use of cellphones among minors, including a lack of attention and concentration, sleep problems, anxiety and depression.
They are calling on Spanish lawmakers to ‘revise the current legislation covering the use of mobiles by minors’.
“We have observed some very serious things among the students in recent years that they need to know about, and there needs to be legislation so that they have some rules and some limits,” Sanchez-Perez said in comments reported by Europa Press.
The petition proposes a complete ban for 14- to 16-year-olds, and not just in schools.
“We want regulations on all levels, so that a child cannot have their own mobile phone,” she added.
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